A Måneskin concert in Turin on February 25 (ANSA/ Alessandro Di Marco)
The communications regulator (Agcom) has fined the event ticket resale platform Viagogo €12.24 million for violating the rules on “secondary ticketing,” also known as “legal touting” in Italy. A statement published on Friday on the Agcom website said that Swiss company Viagogo AG is known to have sold or placed “significant” quantities of tickets without the necessary permits and in some cases at prices ten times higher than nominal prices. The facts concern 68 events organized in Italy between April and October 2022 and include various concerts by Blanco, Måneskin, Subsonica and Renato Zero, among others.
For years there has been increasing pressure on the relevant authorities and companies in the entertainment industry to do something about the second-sale business, which is the very practice of those companies who buy large quantities of tickets for various types of events and then resell them at inflated prices. Last June, Viagogo was again fined by Agcom for violating the relevant regulations: At that time, the sanction affected 131 events, including concerts by Måneskin, Vasco Rossi, Green Day, Dua Lipa and Cesare Cremonini, as well as tickets sold at had been sold at prices six/seven times higher than the nominal prices.
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